BRATISLAVA, November 19, (WEBNOVINY) — The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) will probably have to rewrite its efficiency analysis, which it had elaborated for the Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee. Its chairman Jozef Kollar (SaS) claims that the submitted material does not offer answers to the questions of legislators. He meant particularly the fact whether there is room for the central bank to make its activities more efficient. Moreover, based on the delivered analysis, it seems that the central bank perceived the request of the committee as interference with its independent position. At some of its future sessions, the committee is supposed to vote whether to return the analysis to the NBS, including a request for provision of concrete data for comparison.
The NBS stated in the analysis that the reduction of staff members and costs would be possible only if some of its activities were shifted to other institutions, but this would pose an additional burden on the state coffers. However, Kollar claims that this cannot be proven on the basis of data, charts, and comparisons included in the material. Instead, the first two pages of the analysis inform of the central bank’s independence and its legal status within the eurozone. “I am very sorry that the National Bank of Slovakia understood the committee’s request for an analysis as an assault on its independence. This study failed to show good faith. This study is a manifestation of the central bank’s defiance,” he said at the session held on Thursday.
Vice-Governor of the central bank Viliam Ostrozlik has denied these accusations, claiming that the bank did try to compile the study responsibly; they only wanted to provide comprehensive information of the legal position of the NBS as a member of the euro club. “We did not consider it an attack at all,” he said. However, the problem is that eurozone’s central banks and their organizational structures are not comparable. For instance, the NBS also carries out integrated supervision, in contrast to several other central banks. Another difficulty is that the central bank works with confidential information and is obliged to consult the release of many matters with the European Central Bank. It is not known whether the redrafted analysis will be more specific.
Ostrozlik highlighted that the central bank is not linked to the state budget and operates with its own financial sources. This, nonetheless, does not mean that its behavior does not need to be efficient, counters Kollar. The central bank writes in its analysis that the number of employees is appropriate even after the introduction of the euro currency in Slovakia. Based on the analysis, it can be said that the central bank fulfills the broadest scale of tasks of all central banks in the eurozone, and, as the only central bank, provides integrated supervision over the entire financial market. At the end of last year, the NBS employed 1,083 people. Annually, it spends about EUR 70 million on its operations, which is the fifth lowest position in the euro zone by absolute figures.
SITA